JUDGE CRITICIZES PRISON TERM

EX-CITY OFFICER SENTENCED TO MANDATORY 315 YEARS FOR GUN CRIMES,
ROBBING DRUG DEALERS

Judge Criticizes Ex-Officer's 315-Year Sentence

A federal judge in Baltimore criticized a Supreme Court ruling that
forced him yesterday to sentence a former city police detective to
spend the next three centuries in prison, urging the nation's highest
court to revisit the issue of mandatory sentencing for gun crimes.

Dressed in prison garb, William A. King, 35, showed little reaction
as U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz reluctantly imposed the
lengthy prison term - 315 years and one month.

"There is something fundamental wrong with this sentence," Motz said,
comparing his condition to the dilemma of Pontius Pilate, the
biblical judge of Jesus who expressed doubts but imposed a death
sentence anyway.

Appearing anguished and rubbing his face, Motz described the sentence
as "absolutely disproportionate to the wrong that was committed,
although the wrong that was committed was a very serious one."

The federal judge also ordered King to serve four years of probation
and undergo routine drug testing if the former officer is ever
released from a penal system without parole.

In April, a jury convicted King and his former partner, Antonio L.
Murray, of shaking down drug dealers for their own profit, finding
them guilty of more than a dozen federal gun possession crimes that
carry stiff, mandatory penalties required by Congress.

Murray is scheduled to be sentenced next week.

Both men were convicted of several counts of robbing drug dealers and
users in West Baltimore while wearing their police-issued guns at
their sides. The first gun charge carries a mandatory five-year
sentence; each subsequent count carries a mandatory 25-year sentence,
to be served consecutively.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Peters defended the prison sentence
for King, saying in part that the crimes he was convicted of were
only a "small snapshot of what Mr. King and Mr. Murray were doing on
the street."

In a later interview, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said,
"Congress is always free to review" its mandatory sentencing
legislation, but added that he considered the issue resolved in the courts.

King and Murray became a catchphrase on the streets of Baltimore when
their names surfaced in the Stop Snitching video, an underground
production that warns people against cooperating with police. Their
notoriety infuriated department leaders already battling the image
problem of several officers accused of wrongdoing.

"People like William King have no place in the Baltimore Police
Department and never will," Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm said in a
statement yesterday. "Thanks to tireless efforts of the Police
Department internal affairs section and the United States attorney's
office, justice was served."

His comments were echoed in a statement by the acting special agent
in charge of the Baltimore FBI office, Frank E. Goetz, who said:
"This man abused the trust of the citizens he swore to protect and
vilified the badge entrusted to him."

Both officers testified they stole cocaine and heroin to give to
informants because they said their training endorsed it. The Police
Department abandoned them because, they said, commanders dared not
admit that cracking the drug trade means bending the rules.

In a strongly worded statement at today's hearing, Motz chastised
King, saying, "This wasn't rule-bending. You don't use your informant
to be a drug dealer for you."

Still, Motz said that the U.S. Supreme Court needed to review the
case because he believes the justices earlier misinterpreted how the
25-year gun sentences should be meted out. The judge said the 25-year
penalties should only apply to those who re-offend after their first
conviction.

Therefore King, Motz said, should not have been required to face so
many consecutive 25-year sentences within the same case, which is his
first conviction.

King's lawyer, Edward Smith Jr., said he plans to appeal the
conviction and sentence.

"He has a lot of courage," Smith said of Motz's comments.

King was so convinced that he could win at trial that he turned down
a plea bargain for 10 years in prison, according to Smith.

His superiors once saw King as particularly proficient in arresting
drug dealers in the department's new public housing unit.

In court yesterday, King admitted he had made mistakes, but argued
his behavior had been taught to him by other officers. He emphasized
that he had never fired his gun or intentionally hurt anyone.

And he reiterated that the rules he broke were rules broken by other
officers who also felt the pressure to make more arrests.

The evidence against him was overwhelming. Relying on hours of
secretly recorded conversations of the officers and several drug
dealers who testified at trial, federal prosecutors spent almost
three weeks presenting evidence that the officers robbed drug addicts
in West Baltimore to reward their sources on the street and line
their own pockets.

Defense attorneys described the officers as scapegoats.

After yesterday's hearing, his mother, Carolyn King, and other
relatives expressed confidence that the conviction would be
overturned on appeal. They appeared heartened by Motz's description
of the sentences as unduly harsh.

"Why did the judge say it was unfair? Because it is," King's aunt
Joan Bond said.